Real Patients: Type 1 Diabetes Medications

Transcript

Insulin is my life support if you will. There is no cure for type one diabetes. I have to take insulin. And the very medication that saves my life could also kill me.

I was in the hospital for I would say the first two months after I got diagnosed cause’ they had to go through my carbohydrate counts, what kinds of insulin I had to use.

So I have to take insulin in the right amount at all times. If I take too much insulin my blood sugar goes too low and I can fall asleep and not wake up. If I don’t take enough insulin my blood sugar goes too high and then I’m at risk for long-term complications.

We were learning how to use syringes and stuff and my mom, like, I remember she like threw the syringe in the nurse’s arm like a dart because we were practicing and she was, she was like okay you can use my arm. And I was like that’s fine but after I seen it I was like I don’t want her to give me shots.

And I started with injecting and then from there on and there on we had to kind of switch our whole lives around to adapt to that.

At first I took NPH insulin. And I took that twice a day, first thing in the morning and then at evening, about mealtime. That lasted about twelve hours each shot.

And then I also take a once a week dose, which should last me for the whole week until the next dose.

Then I also took R about thirty minutes before a meal. I had to take the R to cover what I was getting ready to eat.

My parents injected me maybe the first month of two.

I think my mom was kind of scared to do it even though she knew how to. She learned but I had also learned and I was kind of eager to give it to myself because I’m a very independent person.

So they had a little device that you push the button and it shoots into your leg. And that’s what I started to do by myself.

And I did that for about seven years until I was put on an insulin pump.

Once I was fifteen I believe, maybe fourteen, I got introduced to the insulin pump.

Went through quite a bit of training. Probably about ten classes to learn how to use an insulin pump. And now all of those numbers are in my pump and I simply put in what my current blood sugar is and it calculates how much I need to correct and bring that blood sugar to a healthy range. And then how much do I need to cover the food I’m getting ready to eat. And I have a lot more flexibility in my eating. I can chose to skip a meal or I can chose to eat more if I want and just take more insulin at the meal.

I didn’t want an insulin pump at first because they had wires and when I was playing sports they would get like in the way.

That was a problem for me cause then when I wanted to go swimming or what not you know, there would be everyone hey what’s that? This that and another. And I would have to change it every three days. But that was, I think that was mainly the biggest issue for me is that you know, the attention and that people would approach you a different way for something they don’t see, know what’s going on.

So I played that game all day long. How do I keep it between the lines? How do I keep my blood sugar in a safe range?